Buzzword bingo: bollocks, creativity and reality

A couple of days ago, I came across this site: Corporate B.S. Generator. It was fun for a little while clicking the button and seeing each new “corporate b.s. phrase” come up. It was also fun looking through the table and identifying all the buzzwords that pertain to my chosen disciplines.

And then an idea occurred to me – I could use this as a kind of lateral thinking tool, ala Edward deBono. The topic would be exploring what the buzzwords and corporate b.s. phrases could actually mean.

Image courtesy of Davide Restivo. Creative Commons Licence

Here’s how it could work.

Introduce the topic. Get some examples of common phrases. Parse them into the grammar components.

Have participants brainstorm the buzzwords particular to their field. Use adverb, verb, adjective, noun as prompts. Each word gets a “card” of its own.

Place random words on a sticky wall or table, just keeping the grammar correct.

Run a focussed conversation exploring the terms: their individual and (possible) collective meaning/s.

So, where have you done something like this? What did the participants get out of it? How else could you do this? How would you extend this idea?